A senior official at state power utility firm of PLN in West Kalimantan province said that it will increase power import from Malaysia in a bid to boost up the economy in the country's border areas with Malaysia, local media reported on Wednesday.

Daniel Bangun, general manager of PLN in West Kalimantan, Indonesia's bordering province to Malaysia, said that his office planned to add more power supply imported from Malaysia to Indonesia's isolated regencies located around border areas with Malaysia, such as Sambas and Kapuas Hulu.

He said starting from next year his office would add power supply to Sambas regency up to 600 KVA, makes total power supply to the regency increased up to 800 KVA.

Meanwhile in Kapuas Hulu regency, the state firm planned to add 400 KVA of power. Electricity in those two regencies is supplied from Malaysia's power firm of Sarawak Electricity Supply Corporation (SESCO) since 2009.

Besides that, PLN West Kalimantan also planned to import some 1, 500 KVA of power from the neighboring country for Entikong subdistrict in Sanggau regency.

Daniel said that importing electricity from Malaysia is cheaper than self-producing it with diesel power generator.

The price of power from Malaysia was set at 30 cent Malaysian Ringgit, or equals to 1,000 rupiah (about 0.1 US dollar) per kilowatt hour (kWH). Meanwhile, one liter of diesel fuel in the province, priced at 8,000 rupiah (about 0.8 US dollar) on only produces 3 KWH of electricity.

"So it apparently has wide difference in the cost. In term of business it is applicable. This is the most suitable at the time being," he said on Tuesday, as quoted by the vivanews.com.

For the long haul plan, he said that his office has planned a self-sufficiency power production in the province by constructing power plants with less-expensive production cost than diesel power generators.